Springfield’s Millrace

The founder of our city, Elias Briggs and his son Isaac dredged the Millrace with horses, plows, and a shovel. They dug this canal to power the flour and sawmills that would soon be built. Mr. Briggs began digging this 3.5 mile canal in 1852. Today, you can see one of the shovels that created the Millrace in the Springfield Museum.

The Millrace has also been used for fishing, boating, picnicking, swimming and hiking. At one time the salmon runs in the Millrace were so abundant that people could spear the salmon from the water. In the early years, it was also a very popular place to go swimming. On of the most popular swimming places was at the intersection of 28th and Mill. Someone even put a diving board and built a dressing room at this location.

In 1901, the Booth-Kelly Lumber Company purchased the sawmills and the entire Millrace. They created a millpond where logs could be stored and easily moved before they were cut up into lumber. In 1911, a fire destroyed the mill and Booth-Kelly replaced it with a modern electric mill that cut lumber until the late 1950s.

In 1958, the lumbermill and the Millrace were sold to Georgia-Pacific. Since then, Georgia-Pacific has donated the Millrace and most of the millpond to the City of Springfield. In 1993, a group of concerned citizens and government agencies attempted to revitalize the Millrace for economic, recreations, educational and environmental opportunities. Their efforts have fallen short, and the Millrace continues to be an untapped asset. Today, the Millrace provides irrigation water, fire protection and storm water drainage.